


All Hallows Eve

by bastardmice (itsahardyparty)



Category: Type O Negative (Band)
Genre: Angst, Blood, Body Horror, Cemetery, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Grave Robbers, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Magic, Necromancy, One Shot, Resurrection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:21:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23677555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsahardyparty/pseuds/bastardmice
Summary: Peter has met a bit of an unfortunate end. It's his friends' job to bring him back upon this mortal coil, seeing as how they've refused to let sleeping dogs lie.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 13





	All Hallows Eve

**Author's Note:**

> I know I'm a little late on this, but happy 10th death day, Peter.

On Halloween, it is said, the veil that separates the realms of living and deceased thins to nearly nothing. The spirits of those long passed again walk the earth, searching for those they love or for an old stomping ground to revisit before they are forced to return from whence they came. The day was opportunistic for all: the dead, and the living. Those endowed with magical inclinations became more powerful on All Hallows Eve, but necromancers had special privilege due to the spirits of the dead being so accessible. 

A tricky type of enchantment, necromancy is almost more a science than a form of magic for those with the capability to perform it. It must be precise, but each body to be raised is different. Perhaps a master could perform a resurrection alone, but for most people, it takes multiple practitioners. There are rules, of course, too, and the exclusions that they present make necromancy exceptionally difficult to actually perform. Night is the best time to do it, a full moon is ideal, and Halloween is the best calendar day, but beyond that, the practitioners need to trust one another with their lives. One could not merely gather a gaggle of strangers and expect a successful raising--on the contrary. They could all die. In order for another person to be endowed again with the gift of life, those raising them must offer a bit of their own lives in return. And that is why compatibility during the experiment is so vital to its success.

Other technicalities factor in, too. The body must not have been embalmed, which eliminates the vast majority of dead as eligible candidates. And, ideally, it must be "recently" dead. What that means in different circles varies widely, and is always up for debate. Bodies that have not been buried or sealed away begin to decay almost immediately and will be naught more than bones within the year, but if sealed in a casket and buried? The decomposition process slows considerably. 

Planning for a resurrection was a little odd, but so were the boys. After Peter had died that same April--almost seven months back--they had buried him themselves, almost immediately. They refused to have him embalmed, instead carrying the coffin out to the field themselves, shovels dragging behind them. They weren't good enough yet. And this had to be done correctly. 

Now the date was October 31st, nearing 8 o'clock at night, and Kenny, Josh, and Johnny made that same trek, shovels slung over their shoulders, for the first time in six and a half months. It was already dark, stars beginning to glimmer from behind the trees, as they took the long walk from academy to boneyard. The circumstances of Peter's death had been tragic and cruelly ironic. To die in a school specifically designed to train young necromancers seemed so awful it was almost _funny,_ but unfortunately it was more common an occurrence than one might expect. Necromancy strained both the mind and the body. The bones splintered, the innards became septic, the mouth rotted. It was so, so easy to go in over your head. 

Peter had gone out one night and tried to raise his father from the dead. He had told nobody where he was going, lest someone try to dissuade him. It steadily became clear that it was more difficult than he'd anticipated, but instead of calling it off, he'd doubled down. 

When the boys had woken up the next morning, the bottom bunk of Josh's bed was empty. They searched high and low and finally found him, a mile or so away, and carried him home. They said their farewells and buried him underneath the tree at the top of the hill, but no tears were shed that day. They knew it was not really goodbye. They would train intensely for the next half year, slowly building their abilities individually and as a group. They started with mice, then worked up to rats, small dogs, cats, larger dogs, and then, one day, the three of them raised a human child who had been taken from her parents too soon. 

It hadn't been easy. Not even close. The sheer energy that had taken put all three of them in bed for days, recovering slowly from the toll it had taken on their bodies. The opportunity to raise humans did not come along very often, but they continued to hone their skills, until, on October 30th, their instructor finally gave them his blessing--they were ready. 

He made sure they understood, though, what this entailed. None of them had ever resurrected a fully grown human before, and Peter was much larger than most adult humans. Even with all of their training, this was a very risky procedure. They could be severely injured, or even die. And if they waited another year, for next All Hallows Eve, Peter could very well have been too decomposed by then--they'd be bringing back a zombie. It was now or never. 

Josh drove his shovel into the rain-softened soil and scooped out a generous heap, tossing it behind him. There was no reason to beat around the bush. Even digging him up would probably take a long time, and they had to do this before midnight. The three of them didn't talk very much as they got down to work. Normally they joked and laughed together, but this time they were too focused. And they each would have been lying if they'd said that nerves weren't a factor here. Their goal was to bring Peter back or die trying, and the chance that they _would_ die...well, it was something they preferred not to think about. 

"You guys ready for this?" Johnny asked quietly, after they'd dug an efficient, square hole already four or five feet deep. It was evident that, while they were all so focused, that maybe the digging wouldn't take _so_ long. 

"No," Kenny and Josh responded in unison, not looking up from their work. They wished it would take just a little longer. They'd done this a thousand times on dozens of varying small creatures, but now...there was skin in the game. 

It wasn't long before a shovel thunked against wood, and Kenny gave the thumbs-up from inside the pit. Josh jumped in with him and the two of them worked at lightning speed to clear off the rest of the dirt, and then...there it was. Peter's coffin. 

"Should we open it?" Johnny called down, head cocked to one side. 

Josh and Kenny glanced at one another, then Josh answered. "No. I don't want to have to look him in the face if this doesn't work."

Johnny nodded, then reached down into the grave. Josh grabbed his hand and Johnny pulled him back to level ground, then they both reached down and helped Kenny out. Once they were all settled on the surface, Kenny pulled a Bowie knife out of his back pocket. "Alright. Well...we should get started then. Right?"

Each of them held a hand out, palm up. Kenny went first: he leveled the blade against the palm of his hand, then swiftly sliced it open. 

The pain stalled for a few seconds, and then his hand was on fire. "Fuck!" he hissed, clenching his fist in an attempt to apply pressure. Josh had already taken the knife, and slashed a diagonal gash across his palm. He tossed the knife to Johnny for him to do the same just as the pain was really beginning to set in. 

Three fists, clenched tight, met in the middle again. Blood was dribbling between all their fingers as they lightly pressed their knuckles together.

"This blood's for you, Pete," Johnny murmured. 

"Eat your heart out."

The three of them spread out a little and started their odd little preparations. Kenny hopped on the balls of his feet and rolled his shoulders as if he was preparing for a boxing match. Johnny sat in the grass and started to stretch like he was about to do yoga, and Josh took a moment of still to meditate and gather his energy. 

It was nearing 10 at night, now, and darkness had fallen over the land, blanketing everything and everyone. The boys took their places: one on either side, and one at the foot of the grave. 

"Don't fall into the hole," Josh droned. It was hard to tell if he was joking. The low moonlight allowed them to see just slightly, but Josh, at the foot of the grave, was little more than a silhouette of wild curls. He glanced at Johnny, to his left, and Kenny, to his right, and then down at Peter's coffin. "Alright. We'd better get started."

Johnny closed his eyes and focused as intently as he could on Peter--somewhere specifically around his chest. That was where his special talent was--getting the actual body starting again. Getting the heart to pump, ruptured veins to close, the brain to flicker with electricity. Once he found where he wanted to be, a hum began low in his chest, and evolved into a rumbling chant. Kenny was good at looking around for the _soul,_ and anchoring it back to the physical form. He squeezed his eyes shut and began whispering under his breath, trying to summon Peter's wandering essence. Josh had a bit of a different job. His talents were a little more abstract. He was what their instructor called an _anchor_ \--his job was to hold the other two steady. This was a rare talent and perhaps the most important in necromancy, and especially a raise as big as this one. He stabilized Peter and, when possible, prevented Kenny and Johnny from going in too deep. Concentration was tantamount here. It was vital that the ritual not be interrupted by petty distractions, or else it wouldn't be successful at all. But staying grounded was equally important--losing yourself in the mission was so easy. The anchor had to do both at the same time, seamlessly, and have a sturdy enough grip on both the progress of the resurrection and the physical world to be able to keep his partners stable. By all accounts, Josh had the most difficult job. 

His chanting stalled for a moment as he "found" Johnny--he was always the easiest one to link up with, just by nature. Before a raise, Kenny amped himself up, and Johnny calmed himself down. He was far more accessible. But eventually he found Kenny as well, even with his less centered, more oscillating energy. He was invested in this. He was already looking for Pete.

Johnny was the first to catch--his eyes snapped open and he stared straight, head tilted slightly backward, eyes fixed on the branches of the tree. Not that he could see anything. He had already found himself in the cavity of Peter's chest, in the midst of his already-decaying innards. The heart, the lungs. Up ahead was the brain, and down below were the liver and intestines. There did not seem to be excessive damage to the organs yet, but they had still atrophied with lack of use. His eyes shut again in focus. It was hard to decide where to start--if he began with the heart or the brain and there was damage to the organs that he hadn't foreseen, Peter might be raised, but wouldn't live very long. Eventually he settled on the more peripheral organs to be extra, extra safe. 

The hunt for the soul was among the more dangerous parts of the raising, and it was right at the beginning, which left Kenny and Josh with jobs that were immediately daunting. To find the soul was one thing. To actually catch it was another. Peter's soul was finally drawn closer by Kenny's summoning, and his eyes snapped open, pupils now replaced with a milky white film. His head dropped backward and his mouth fell open as his muscles went slack. He looked like a marionette, only held up by invisible strings. 

It was against Josh's best interest to worry--nothing good ever came of it, and it was disruptive at best, detrimental at worst. But this stage always gave him a funny feeling. 

The silence was only broken by Johnny's frantic whispering, the stillness only disrupted by his movements--he was sewing. Stitching ruptured veins back together and repairing kidneys: the medic of the crew. 

Josh felt a tug in the center of his chest, and his brow furrowed. Kenny was descending. That was not a bad thing in itself, but it was dangerous. He cracked an eye open and quickly shut it before he saw anything. That was _never_ a good idea. It was probably a process that no mortal eyes had any right to witness, but he was often overcome with morbid curiosity. 

Another tug--sharper this time. Josh frowned. He was already in deep, maybe too deep, and he would pull him back if he was able to, but Kenny was so stubborn--

A death rattle tore out of Kenny's chest and Johnny's eyes snapped open in surprise. The thread slid, slowly, and disappeared from his mind as his consciousness was thrust back into the earthbound process. Josh opened his eyes and looked over when he felt the link between them snap. "Johnny!"

"Help him!" Johnny cried. It wasn't like him to get overly hysterical, but then he followed Johnny's line of sight and peered over at Kenny. 

White eyes staring into the sky at nothing, Kenny stood on the balls of his feet as if suspended by an outside force. His lips and cheeks slowly began to darken, and then blackness crawled through his veins and spiderwebbed across his skin. He was rotting. His lower lip cracked and the resulting wound oozed with blood and sludge, green-black and septic. His fingertips turned blue, then purple, then black and necrotic, as if he had frostbite that was advancing too rapidly to keep track of. 

Josh shut his eyes and refocused himself, checking their tether--it was still there, and still surprisingly strong. Suddenly, he had the very vivid image of hikers in the Himalayas, and a strong, sturdy rope with a corpse on the other end. 

He pushed that image out of his head immediately, and pulled on the tether.

The tether pulled back. 

"Oh, you stubborn son of a bitch--Johnny, keep going."

"But he--"

"Johnny, _now._ "

He opened his mouth to protest again, but reconsidered. Josh knew what he was doing. His worrying wouldn't help. Besides. He had to help Peter too, and his was an endurance game. 

After a few moments of silence and focus, Josh gradually felt another tether, on Johnny's side, reattach itself. 

Kenny was so close, he could feel it. That place in his chest where he could feel the tether was thrumming with tension. Kenny was reaching out as far as he possibly could--

It dropped again, and Josh grit his teeth. This was too much, Kenny was too deep. He had to pull him back, and then he could try again. He creaked an eye open, and Kenny still half-floated there, blood pooling underneath his eyes, his breathing becoming more and more ragged as his lungs filled with fluid. Josh pulled hard on the tether and Kenny pulled back just as hard, the stupid obstinate bastard, and then be pulled _again_ so hard that Josh stumbled forward and nearly went headfirst into Peter's grave. 

Two tugs was the signal, and it took Josh a surprised few seconds to process the fact that Kenny was ready. He took two gargantuan steps backward and pulled as hard as he could, beads of sweat erupting on his forehead. He brought both hands in front of him to grab the invisible rope and heaved, combining physical strength with mental fortitude. He had Pete. Two tugs meant he was there and he had Pete and then half their job was already done, provided Kenny survived the ascension--Josh opened his eyes through the strain to see Kenny still in the same position, some fluid oozing from his mouth, and the rot travelling up both his forearms. Fuck. He had to do this and do it fast. 

Josh forced himself to stabilize suddenly. Worrying would not help anything, as he had to keep remembering. He had to be the rock. That was his job--just to be the rock. 

Kenny was coming back, slowly but surely, and he did have Peter's soul in tow. It hadn't been easy to catch--Josh could already tell that--but at least he was coming up. It was getting easier to pull him now; he was getting closer. 

Suddenly, Josh was thrown backwards from the force of his pulling, and discovered with a creeping sense of terror that he no longer had a counterweight. He believed for one eternal moment that he had lost Kenny on the way up and that his tether had snapped: that both his and Peter's souls were lost. Kenny did not stand on his toes any longer; he was slumped in a lame heap where he had once stood, eyes rolled back in his skull and the blackness of gangrene creeping to his elbows. Josh was frozen, staring at his body. They hadn't been ready. They hadn't been ready at all. 

"Kenny?" he whispered, glancing sidelong at Johnny, who was lost in his healing: his hands were outstretched over Peter's grave as he muttered under his breath. Recovered innards wouldn't do a damn bit of good without a soul to animate them, but Josh didn't want to worry him quite just yet and risk disrupting him _again._ "Kenny!" 

Kenny moved, and Josh nearly died on the spot. One good pull on the tether and he realized that Kenny wasn't gone after all, which meant that Pete's soul had more than likely come back with him. He could rest there until he came to. Now it was Johnny's turn, and he worked hard, trying to repair all those organs. Whereas Kenny had a quicker job that was very strenuous all at once, Johnny's job took a long time, and the strain built up. In the end, they likely suffered the same amount. 

Johnny dug his heels into the soft earth and clenched his fists. His chanting got louder, the blood from his sacrificial wound running down his arm. Josh enjoyed watching him work, actually, contrary to how he felt about Kenny. He was the medic, the enchanter, the healer. When Johnny worked, the color came back to faces, pulses returned to veins. It was miraculous, almost, to witness it, despite the toll it incurred. He was nearly done patching the organs. With a well-preserved corpse, that was the easiest part. Then it was time to restart the heart, and then finally the brain, which were both considerably more difficult tasks. 

The chanting paused for a moment, and Josh felt Johnny's tether tighten. Then, this time, in lieu of mumbling, in clear-voiced Latin, Johnny commanded Peter's heart to start again. He stretched one hand out and his eyes snapped open, black as death, his normally golden-brown irises lost to a void. The wind picked up, whipping through the trees and the grass, and Kenny stirred on the other side of the grave. Johnny drew a sharp breath and clenched his fist again, then released it. His arm shook with the strain, until there was an unsettling snap. A bone in his arm had splintered. Deep, purple bruises began to pool under his fingernails, and sweat stuck flyaway strands of hair to his face. 

Kenny's eyes fluttered open, and he squinted against the wind. He couldn't feel his extremities. As his vision came back into focus, he peered over at Johnny, staring at him as if in awe. He'd never seen him focusing this intensely before. 

Johnny let out a quiet grunt as he was pushed back. He clenched his fist again and shouted something else in Latin that Kenny couldn't follow, but relaxed his grip when he felt Peter's heart start to thud. Blood was moving again. Soon his body temperature would pick back up, and his involuntary bodily functions would resume, but they could only coast for so long without a brain. That was where Johnny was headed next. Josh nodded and gave him a little slack, and in response, Johnny's tether sank. The brain was the hardest part. This time, he extended both hands over Peter's coffin and began to chant in Latin again, his strong voice carrying through the night and over the hills. 

Up above, the clouds parted and Josh spared a moment to gaze skyward. The stars twinkled clearly down at them, and with her one great eye, she watched over them: the full moon. For the first time since Peter had died, Josh allowed himself a moment of hope. Maybe they would be successful after all. 

Johnny widened his stance as he felt electricity begin to fizzle at the tips of his fingers. Reanimating a human brain was no small task. He had to spark millions of neurons back to life and pray that atrophy hadn't damaged it beyond repair. In fact, if there was a problem with the brain that couldn't be detected, there was no way to know until after the ritual ended. That had happened with a handful of cats--after an otherwise completely successful raising, the cat woke up blind or walking funny or even with a different personality. As the animals got bigger, the brains got more complicated and the risk of that rose. 

But that wasn't something Johnny could afford to think about. This was the last dance, the vital step before Josh stepped in to join the reanimated body to its lost soul. It had to be timed correctly: if it took too long, the heart would stop again and he'd have to start over, but if he did it too quickly, he risked missing something that needed healing. 

The fizzing got louder, and blisters started to erupt on Johnny's hands and arms. It was burning him. The skin blackened around the edges of the blisters and started to peel away; the skin broke and blood and fluid oozed from the cracks. Johnny's hands shook with the strain, but his black, unblinking eyes remained open as if he were unaware of the pain. Another snap, and then another--a bone in his hand, a finger, marrow and blood in exchange for consciousness. 

Josh winced and checked his tether. Solid and strong. He never worried about Johnny for a second; he knew what he was doing. 

Johnny threw his head back and with an almighty effort, sent a jolt of electricity into Peter that was so strong it actually rattled him in his coffin. The force of it threw Johnny backward, and he tripped over himself and landed on his back. But it had worked. He sat up just in time to watch Josh's eyes turn from their usual light blue to bright green. He took Peter's soul from Kenny, and now it was his turn to descend below the land of the living, into another realm. His hair stood on end, almost forming a halo around him, but he was still as the wind whipped into a frenzy. He lifted one hand over his head, the hand that he had cut into before they'd begun, fingers curled as if he were holding an apple, then brought it down and held it open over Peter's body. 

The same necrotic blackness that had afflicted Kenny now began in his fingertips and around his eyes, giving him corpse paint in the realest sense of the term. He had to make sure the soul reattached itself fully, or else this wouldn't work. He held his hand steady despite the resistance he could feel. Possession of the soul was doing a number on his body, and he wanted to jolt it back into his body as quickly and cleanly as he could. 

But god, the thing was putting up a fight. Josh was steadily blackening like an overdone steak, chunks of flesh flaking off his arms and face, lost to the wind. Then, just as the decomposition seemed to consume him, everything stopped. The wind died instantly, and Kenny slowly sat up, glancing between Josh and Johnny. 

"Did it work?" he murmured, but his voice still felt loud against the dead silence. "Did we miss the window? Is it past midnight?"

Johnny hissed and rubbed his blistered, raw arm. He could feel the broken bones throbbing already. "I don't know."

Josh peered down into the grave. "...Peter?"

There was a terrible pause, during which the complete silence dragged on for eternity. Josh sighed. All of that for nothing. 

"He should have been up by now," Kenny said, vocalizing what they were all thinking. Lags were not uncommon, but never for this long. 

They waited for another few moments, staring expectantly at the coffin. 

With a massive crash, the lid flew off the coffin and the body inside let out a mighty, undead roar. Peter, or Peter's body, at least, sat up straight and began to claw his way out of his grave. 

Kenny shrieked and tried to scramble away, but Peter grabbed his ankle and dragged him down into the pit with him. 

"Kenny!" Johnny screamed, jumping backward when Peter's other hand shot out and tried to grab him as well. 

"HE'S A ZOMBIE, RUN!" Josh shouted, tearing around the hole and grabbing Johnny, pulling him along as he broke into a sprint. 

"But Kenny--"

The two of them stopped suddenly when they heard a strange noise-- _laughter._

"What the fuck is that?" Johnny whispered frantically. 

"That's not _funny, Peter!"_

They whipped around. Kenny was struggling to pull himself out of Peter's grave, and was followed by...Peter. Who didn't look terribly zombie-like after all. 

"Oh, man. You scream like a little girl."

"You scared the shit out of me!" Kenny snapped, collapsing on the grass so he didn't have to acknowledge that his legs were shaking. "You're such a dick."

"Well, you went to all that trouble, so I must not be that bad." He pulled himself up and reclined next to Kenny. 

"Yeah, you're fuckin' welcome, by the way."

Josh broke into a huge smile and took off running back toward them, followed closely by Johnny. "Pete!" 

"Hey, dicks."

The two of them tossed their broken bodies on the grass with their friends, giggling like schoolboys. "Oh man, I can't believe that fuckin' worked!" 

"You look a little dead there, Pete," Johnny commented, poking at his face. His skin was still a little bit loose. Honestly, it would have been more off-putting, but they all looked like something out of a horror movie. 

"You should see you three," Peter grinned. "Your skin is coming off in sheets. I nearly pulled all of Kenny's leg skin straight off."

"Yeah, again, thanks for that." 

Johnny snorted, then dissolved into a fit of childlike giggles, and then a few tears streamed down his cheeks. "You're alive."

"Don't get all sappy on me, Johnny," Peter chided him lightly, but still threw an arm around him. "I wasn't going anywhere fast."

"And we weren't gonna let you." Josh grinned over at him. "You think you can get away from us that easy?"

Kenny sat up on his elbows and squinted at him. "You think that shit was _easy?"_

"Piece of cake." Josh smirked up at the stars. "I think we should do this every weekend." 

"Shut the fuck up." 

All their ailments would clear up eventually, even if it required days of bed rest. But their skin wouldn't be black and necrotic forever, and they would heal. The spread had already stopped. With no pressure to get back to their dorm any time soon, the four of them lied in the grass and napped until the sun came up, content with a job well done. 


End file.
